


As she lay dying

by crazychipmunk



Series: As they lay dying [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Battle of Winterfell, Epilogue, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, One Shot, Post-War, Romance, The War for the Dawn, Winterfell, please read to the end!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 13:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazychipmunk/pseuds/crazychipmunk
Summary: As she lay dying, Arya reflects upon how only on the brink of death did she finally have an interest in living.





	As she lay dying

**Author's Note:**

> A podcast pointed out that we're in this very special Schrödinger's cat moment in which we don't know who lives and who dies so here's me preparing for Arya's death in case it happens :(

As she lay dying, Arya looked up at the sky over Winterfell. Snow was falling. It had been howling before, blinding her eyes and stealing the air straight out of her lungs. Now, it fell peacefully, fat white flakes drifted lazily down from the sky and clung to Arya’s eyelashes.

This wasn’t the first time Arya had faced death. She saw it on the Kingsroad, when the Hound threw the sack containing the pieces of Mycah’s body at her feet. She saw it in King’s Landing; the sound of Syrio Forel’s wooden practice sword again naked steel, the horrified look on the stable boy’s face as Needle slid into his belly, the cold swish of Ice as it severed her father’s head. She saw it when Lommy gurgled to death on his own blood. Before she knew it, death had become an old friend, courting her, seducing her with its power. They danced together and every time death drew her near, Arya had spun away. She saw death a hundred thousand times; each time death wore a new face. As she opened her eyes one morning, Arya realized she was living to see which eyes death would close that day, which face death would show her next. She had been looking forward to seeing this one.

The wights were death’s greatest creation, corpses in varying states of decay that lunged jerkily at her. Some were still fresh enough to have faces, their armor bearing the sigils of her father’s bannermen. For the first time ever, Arya was thankful that her father had been beheaded. The headless pile of bones that emerged from Ned Stark’s tomb looked nothing like the father she had adored. She felt little shattering it with her dragonglass spear.

Rickon though, had been different. He was basically a baby when she last saw him, pudgy cheeks and curly hair. The dead boy who chased her though the crypts of Winterfell looked so much like Robb she thought it was him at first, Rickon had grown so much only to die so young. Once again, Arya was thankful Robb’s body was lost somewhere in the Riverlands, with Grey Wind’s head sewed onto his body, far away from the White Walkers.

The battle was over now. Nymeria licked Arya’s cheek and she found the strength in herself to stroke her direwolf’s fur one last time. Centuries of Stark kings, taken down by the very wolves they used as their sigil. _You’ve got to go,_ Arya thought, _Protect Sansa and Bran. Protect the survivors. Protect the north_. Unlike the last time they parted, Nymeria did not hesitate. When she and her great pack were gone, Arya was the last living thing in Winterfell.

The cold seeped into Arya as warm blood flowed out of her body. Jon and the dragon queen had been thorough; Winterfell burned all around her from dragonfire, burning and freezing Arya to death at the same time. She should be impressed, death had put on a show for her, impressed her, this would be a spectacular way to go. If the living won the war, they would sing songs about her for centuries: the last Stark of Winterfell, Arya Stark who led a thousand wolves to defend the living against a thousand dead Stark kings. Death had expected her to run into its embrace only to find her heart suddenly belonged to another.

Blood bubbled from Arya’s lips as she chuckled to herself. How ironic was that only on the brink of death did she finally have an interest in living. She had only wanted to see what it was like before she died, to have one last human experience before she risked becoming a wight forever. But now, Arya would gladly trade a heroic young death for a long unremarkable life, as long as she could spend that life with him.

Death could show her a hundred thousand new, spectacular faces, but they would be nothing compared to the way Gendry softly chuckled when he kissed her. _I have kissed you a hundred thousand times in my dreams,_ he had confessed, _and if we live to see summer again, I vow to kiss you a hundred thousand times more._ That morning, Arya did not wake up thinking about what game she would play with death that day. Instead, she woke up next to Gendry, excited to kiss him a hundred thousand times, only to realize they had run out of time.

She had wanted to wrap his arms around her and ask him to stay with her forever, to command he survive until summer returned. Briefly, Arya even thought of asking him to run—Braavos, Pentos, even the ruins of Valyria if it meant she could be with him. But as he handed her the spear he had forged her, resolve in his eyes, she realized she could not ask him to run.

The army of the dead were marching on Winterfell, Arya was a Stark, fighting for the north, for her family. Gendry was no northerner. He could have stayed in King’s Landing, far away from the Night King and his army. Instead, he had chosen to follow her here, to Winterfell, taking the long way as he said. The man she loved was ready to lay down his life to protect her home. How could she ask him to run like a coward. In another life, when the future of Westeros was not on the line, Arya might have been an unhappily betrothed lady, and Gendry the dashing bastard she ran away with. But not this life.

The snowflakes weighed heavily on Arya’s eyelashes now and she found she no longer had the strength to keep her eyes open. As she prepared to close them for the final time, Arya began to pray to death as she had done every night. But for the first time ever, she could no longer bring herself to care that Cersei Lannister be brought to justice. Even though she had looked death in the face that day, Arya found her faith had broken. Instead of praying to death, Arya died with her reason for living on her lips. And as her eyes finally shut, she thought she saw a pair of blue eyes staring back at her and her prayers had been answered. 

* * *

Years later, when the War for the Dawn was merely a distant memory, they did indeed sing songs about Arya Stark, who led a thousand wolves to defend the living against a thousand dead Stark kings, one of the greatest heroes Westeros had ever seen. But there was another song they sang about Arya Stark, a ballad that every maiden in the land sang like a prayer.

Whenever the first notes would start playing at Storm’s End, the great hall would fall silent and all the lords and ladies would turn their heads to look at the Lord and Lady of Storm’s End. Those who have seen it say they have never seen a face more furious than Lady Arya’s while she was forced to listen to a bard sing of her dying in ice and fire with a man’s name on her lips. 

Some even feared that she would draw her fabled Valyrian dagger and slit the bard’s throat. As the song continued, she would turn redder and redder out of embarrassment, reminded of how the wind had carried her dying words to her love, how her love had rushed to her side and rescued her from the ruins of Winterfell on the back of great stag.

All the while, the Lord of Storm’s End would laugh and laugh, this was his favorite song after all. And as the song ended, Lord Gendry Baratheon never failed to pull his lady wife into his arms and kiss her to raucous applause, one of the one hundred thousand summer kisses he had promised her. Arya Stark would smile at him and only him. The Seven Kingdoms never forgot about their greatest hero or her greatest love.

**Author's Note:**

> Just kidding they live happily ever after. Thank you so much for making it to the end and please let me know what you think  
> Also! Please check out my companion piece of Season 8 :)


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